Former Red Brick director charged with embezzlement can travel out of state

Angela Callen, seen in this 2013 photo shortly after she was hired at The Red Brick Center for the Arts.Leigh Vogel/The Aspen Times file photo

The former director of the city of Aspen’s Red Brick Center for the Arts, who is charged with embezzling nearly $160,000 of taxpayer money, received permission Monday to travel to an out-of-state wedding this month.

Angie Callen, 37, is participating in her sister-in-law’s wedding for a week beginning later this week, said Lawson Wills, her attorney.

Prosecutor Don Nottingham didn’t object to the travel request, saying Callen was out of town when her arrest warrant was issued late last month and returned to Aspen and turned herself in at the Pitkin County Jail.

District Judge Chris Seldin granted the request, though he warned Callen that he would issue a warrant for her arrest if she fails to show up for future court hearings.

Callen is charged with four felonies — theft, committing cybercrimes, identity theft and embezzlement of public property. She faces between 11 and 33 years in prison if convicted of all charges, though any sentence she receives might not run consecutively. None of the charges require mandatory prison time, Nottingham said.

Callen served as executive director of the Red Brick Council for the Arts from 2014 until she was fired in June 2017.

Court documents indicate that she took out loans in the name of the Red Brick and then transferred the funds to a snowboard equipment company she owned with her husband. She also repeatedly overpaid herself, ran up thousands of dollars on a Red Brick credit card she secretly opened and spent more than $18,000 on food, hotels and ski excursions, the documents state.